HONG KONG, Nov 5 (Reuters) - Hong Kong shares eased slightly
on Monday, as caution ahead of the U.S. presidential elections
spurred mild profit-taking after a strong run-up last week
lifted the local benchmark to a 15-month high.

The Hang Seng Index fell 0.4 percent to 22,026.1 by
the midday trading break after recording a 2.6 percent gain last
week. The index is up nearly 20 percent this year.

The China Enterprises Index, one of Asia's best
performing benchmarks last month, was down 0.5 percent.

On the mainland, the CSI300 of the top Shanghai
and Shenzhen listings and the Shanghai Composite were
down 0.4 percent.

"Essentially risk appetite is still there but it's a bit
subdued," said Tom Kaan, a director at Louis Capital Markets in
Hong Kong, adding that the market may be taking its lead from
stocks on Wall Street which fell despite better-than-expected
jobs data.

"But the flow of funds into Asia is on and Hong Kong is one
of the biggest beneficiaries," said Kaan, recommending investors
to keep adding blue chips such as Hutchison Whampoa on
any weakness.

Persistent capital inflows into Hong Kong has forced the
territory's monetary authority to intervene 10 times in two
weeks to defend its currency peg as money flowing in pushed the
Hong Kong dollar to the strong end of its trading range.

Hopes of continued inflows supported Hong Kong property
shares, the only sector to trade higher on Monday. The
property sub-index was up 0.4 percent by midday.

Those gains were not enough, however, to offset
profit-taking in index heavyweights such as HSBC Holdings
and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC)
which fell 0.6 percent and 1.1 percent, respectively,
after their rally last month.

HSBC is expected to report third-quarter results after
market hours on Monday.

Financials were weak on the mainland as well with China Life
down 1.4 percent and rival insurer Ping An
off 1.7 percent. Banking shares were on the backfoot
led by Bank of China which was down 0.7 percent.

Bucking the overall weak trend were shares of Foxconn
International Holdings, the world's biggest contract
maker of cellphones, which surged as much as 35 percent after
Citigroup upgraded the stock to a 'buy' and said it expected the
firm to start assembling iPhones this year. [I D :nL3E8M50KF]